


Sacrifice

by smkkbert



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Abduction, F/M, season 4 future fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:06:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smkkbert/pseuds/smkkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity’s father is holding everything over her trying to get her to join him in the darkness. She fought him, they fought him, but now he’s rigged Oliver to a bomb.</p><p>And so she says, “Okay. If you just let me save him, I’ll go with you.” And her father gives in, because duh, that’ll make things easier.  But as soon as Oliver is free he does that handy little island trick on her and “kills” her rather than letting her go to her father. And then he shoots 3 arrows into the man’s chest. Because how dare someone try to take his Felicity.</p><p>(tumblr prompt this is inspired by)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifice

“It’s your choice, Felicity. You decide if he gets to live, or if he will die. You have one hour. If you haven’t shown up until then, all that will be left of him are little pieces that you can pick up from all over this place.”

The smooth voice that she only remembered from her early childhood when it had talked or sang her into sleep, was replaced by a loud hissing when the video transfer was stopped, and the screen went black. It was black, and it stayed black. The hissing was unbearably loud in her ears, the blackness of the screen drawing as if she could disappear into it if she just stared a little longer.

But Felicity couldn’t look away. She just couldn’t get herself to turn her gaze away from where she had seen Oliver seconds before. He had been tied to a chair. His face had been bloody from several bruises. He had barely been able to keep his left eye open since it had been swollen, and during the short video he had lost consciousness twice.

Oliver was held captive. By her father.

Her father was back in town.

Her father was evil.

Her father had Oliver.

And he would kill him.

Two weeks ago they had found out that he was in the city, and Felicity had thought that it would be an easy deal to catch him. She had thought it would be a usual, unspectacular night. The team would head out while she would lead them from the lair and make sure that the police would come in time to arrest him. She had always known that her father was a criminal. She just hadn’t known what kind of criminal he really was until those last days.

Her father was friends with Damian Dahrk. Her father was helping the most evil man she had met this far to destroy the city. So of course none of that night the team had head out to take out her father and hand him over to the police had run smoothly. Her father’s men had fought the team and had left them injured. Several of Laurel’s ribs had been broken, making it hard for her to move for the rest of the week. John had been left with a stab wound on the left side of his chest, and Oliver’s forearms had been almost black from the hematomas there. Thea’s condition had been that bad that she had taken a few days off to visit a friend somewhere out of town.

Thank God, Felicity thought. At least that way she didn’t have to witness any of this. Oliver was the only family Thea had left. If she lost him, too, she would…

Her father had really done everything to succeed. He had attacked the team. He had attacked Oliver when he had given a speech for his mayoral campaign. He had attacked the two of them, Oliver and Felicity, in their home this morning when they had still lain in bed lazily. One of his men had almost been able to grab her and take her away with him, but Oliver had fought off the other guys, and he had protected her.

And now he was paying for it with his life.

All day they had tried to find a lead that was going to help them get to where her father and his men had taken Oliver. She had even called Curtis because four hands could type more than only two, especially when it were two very distracted, frightened, shaking hands as hers. They hadn’t found anything. The whole day they had been sitting here, doing what had felt like nothing, while Oliver had been forced to endure beating and torture and-

A quiet sob escaped her lips, and immediately a warm hand she knew was John’s was put to her shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. But Felicity couldn’t bear to be touched right now. Her legs were shaking when she got up from her chair and walked away from her work station. She couldn’t be touched, couldn’t be comforted right now.

It was her fault this was happening to him. Oliver had been tortured because of her. Oliver was where he was now because of her.

Because her father wanted her. He wanted her to join the darkness he was consumed by, and he wanted her to become just as much of a criminal as he was. That was why he had come to Star City, why he was helping Damian Dahrk to terrorize the citizens, and why he was attacking the team.

Felicity had refused to join him. But now she would have no choice but to do so. He had ordered her to come to a specific warehouse to “talk to him about their promising future”. Felicity knew what that meant. If she didn’t join him, he would kill Oliver, and there was no way that she was going to let that happen. Oliver wouldn’t die because of her, and he-

“Is there any possibility we can defuse the bomb?” Felicity heard Laurel whisper to John.

She didn’t have to look at her friend to know that John was shaking his head. They had only seen little of the bomb, but what they had seen had been enough for John to know that defusing the bomb without her father noticing would be impossible. And as soon as he noticed, he would fire the bomb. So getting him out alive of where he was held captive was impossible.

Taking in a deep breath, she leaned against the salmon ladder, the very same salmon ladder that had witnessed several sexy times lately. Since their return to Star City they had worked on balancing their private life and their nighttime-jobs down here. Everything had gone well except for some little fights. Those last months had been like a dream.

And dreams were supposed to end.

“We will trade him for me,” Felicity said firmly, interrupting Laurel’s, John’s and Curtis’ discussion about who they should call for help to get Oliver back in one piece. “That is how we do it. We will give my father what he wants.”

All three of them turned their heads towards her, staring at her with disbelief in their eyes. Felicity had distantly listened to their plans. Curtis had suggested that he should try and hack the connection between the remote her father was carrying and the bomb, but that would be too dangerous because one wrong click and the bomb would go off. Laurel had suggested getting Sara and her teammates into this, but even with a whole army by their sides they wouldn’t be able to get Oliver out of there alive. John wanted to call Lyla and get information about the bomb and her father from A.R.G.U.S., but that would take too long.

Felicity knew that her friends hadn’t seen the easy way out, and according to the expressions in their faces they didn’t even want to consider it now that she had said it.

“Felicity,…” John started, slowly approaching her.

Immediately she started shaking her head. “I know what you are going to say, John, but that won’t change my mind. Oliver is in this because of me. He is in this because he is my boyfriend and because he wanted to protect me. I am not letting him be tortured and killed because of me.”

Laurel took a step in her direction, too, saying, “Felicity, Oliver-”

“Would do the same if it was me!” she interrupted her friend.

She knew that Laurel would have said that Oliver wouldn’t want that if she had let her continue, and Felicity knew that she was right. That didn’t change the fact that he would do the same for her, though. He actually had already. He had protected her, and that was why he was in this situation. If it was the other way around, Oliver would be through the door and on his way to whoever held her captive already.

“Feli-“

“Could all of you stop saying my name?!” she yelled, two tears escaping her eyes. “Oliver is being tortured, and in less than an hour my father is going to kill him! Does anyone of you seriously think that if he kills him because of me that I will ever recover from that?! If he kills Oliver, I will have to live the rest of my life knowing that he died because of me. I cannot do that.”

They still didn’t look completely convinced. So Felicity stepped towards John. He was the one he really needed to convince. So she put her hands to his forearms that were crossed in front of his chest and looked at him with tear-filled eyes.

“If it were Lyla-“

“That is different,” John interrupted her immediately.

“No, it’s not,” Felicity whispered. “We do what we have to do to protect the people we love. Last year, when we thought Oliver was dead, I let Brick and his men escape when they had Roy and you pinned down. And when you came back to the lair, you told me that it hadn’t been my call to make because it had been Roy’s and your life on the line, and the two of you should have been the one to make the choice. And now this is my call to make, and my decision is to save Oliver. My father is not going to hurt me. He just wants me to come with him. So we need to save Oliver.”

John looked down at her. While she had spoken, the expression in his face had changed. It had shown his unwaveringness when she had begun, but now there were signs of doubt. He was considering what she had said.

“John, please,” she pleaded with him.

He sucked in a deep breath and looked at the ceiling like it was holding the answer.

“You are not really considering it, are you?” Laurel asked. “We can’t just trade one life for another. Oliver is going to rip our heads off if we-”

“She’s right, Laurel,” John interrupted her, his gaze returning to Felicity as he nodded slightly. “This isn’t our call to make. It’s Felicity’s.”

Laurel looked from Felicity to John and back. She still didn’t seem to believe it. Only when another sob escaped Felicity’s lips, she nodded. Felicity guessed that Laurel knew what it felt like to blame oneself for the death of a loved one. She had blamed herself for Tommy’s death. After Oliver had joined the League, they had talked about that. Laurel had to understand why Felicity needed to do that.

“We’ll take you to your father and take Oliver with us,” John said, looking at Laurel who nodded and headed to the changing rooms to suit up. “Curtis, you stay here.”

Curtis looked at Felicity a little while longer, but he got the hint John gave him with his look, so he turned around and left to the work station, starting to type something with the keyboards of the computers. Felicity wanted to go past John and join Curtis, explaining some of the things she had set-up on the computers, so he could take over her job when she joined her father. He hadn’t known that Oliver was Green Arrow for long, so he hadn’t much experience with her computer systems. He was smart, so he probably wouldn’t need her explanations, but Felicity needed something to do.

But she didn’t get past John, anyway. He reached out his hand and grabbed her upper arm gently, pulling her back in front of him.

“Are you sure that you want to do that?” he asked.

Felicity looked at him determinedly. “Yes.”

John looked at her for a little longer, searching for any kind of doubt in her eyes. Only when he couldn’t find any, he nodded, turned around and followed Laurel to the changing rooms.

Felicity took a look at her watch. Forty-two minutes were left because her father was going to fire the bomb that would kill Oliver. They needed to hurry up to make it to the warehouse. They needed to save Oliver.

She looked over to where Curtis sat behind her computers. She could see that he was watching her from the corner of his eyes. Felicity thought about going over to him and explain him a few things, but she couldn’t get herself to move. Her legs felt heavy, the rest of her body was stiff. Her chest burnt from the uneven breaths she was taking.

She took a look around. This new liar had become a new home to her. This year she had found two new homes – the penthouse she shared with Oliver and this new lair. She was gonna miss this. She was gonna miss the lair and what they did here. She was gonna miss her friends and the satisfying feeling of helping people. She was gonna miss watching Oliver on the salmon ladder and waking up next to him in the home they shared. She was gonna miss Oliver.

But she was doing it for him, and she was doing the right thing. Thea needed Oliver. The city needed Oliver. And she needed him. Even if she would have to spend the rest of her life without him, she needed to know that he was alive.

“We are ready,” John stated when Laurel and he returned from the changing rooms, all dressed up. John carried Oliver’s bow and quiver with him. Felicity knew that Oliver felt the safest when he had his bow and arrows with him, so she didn’t ask why John carried it with him.

Felicity nodded. Taking a deep breath, she forced her right foot to lift from the floor and to take a step to her friends. He body was trembling.

When she reached the two of them at the foot of the few stairs that led to the computer station, Curtis hurried from the computers to the three of them. His arms were sliding around Felicity within seconds. She was surrounded by his body, and her arms weakly wrapped around his waist on own accord.

“Felicity?”

“I thought we established that you should rather call me ‘Miss Smoak’?” she asked with a slight smile on her lips.

“Well, I thought about going back to that when you yelled at me to stop saying your name earlier, but given the circumstances…”

Felicity nodded and pulled back and out of the hug. They didn’t have time for long goodbyes. They needed to leave to save Oliver.

“It was an honor to meet and work with you, Felicity,” Curtis said. “We’ll see each other again, right?”

Felicity nodded with a faked smile. Maybe they were going to see each other again, but probably different from what Curtis had in mind. If they saw each other again, it was probably because she was a villain, and they were hunting her down.

“We need to leave,” she said towards John and Laurel, and they nodded.

They drove to the warehouse her father had told them to in silence. The atmosphere was tensed and neither even dared to say a word or to move, afraid the noises were too loud and could sound like an explosion in the quietness of the little car. Felicity didn’t miss the short glances John casted at her through the rearview mirror, but she didn’t say anything about it.

She kept her gaze lowered to her hands on her thighs, repeating to herself that Oliver wasn’t going to fall back into his black hole just because he lost her. When they had moved into the penthouse, he had told her that he didn’t know what he would become if anything ever happened to her. She had understood the implication in that sentence, but she had kissed it away, not wanting him to worry.

How could she have possibly known that any of this would happen?

She couldn`t have because if she had she would have done everything possible to protect Oliver and the team. She wouldn’t have let it come this far.

“We will walk from here,” John said when he parked the car.

Laurel put on her mask, John his helmet. Then they got out of the car that was parked in a side alley not far from the warehouse. Felicity’s legs were still shaking, so she held onto the car when she got out. John came to her side and wrapped an arm around her waist, steadying her until she was secure enough to be let go. Laurel came to her other side.

“Felicity, I am going to ask you one last time,” John said firmly, putting his hands to both of her shoulders and looking at her urgently. At least she assumed so since she couldn’t see his eyes under the helmet. “Are you sure that you want to do this?”

Leaning forward, she hugged her friend tightly. Her head rested right above his heart. The steady beat of it calmed her down like usually only Oliver’s was able to do. John put his arms around her and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. They had been through so much, but now it was over. When she pulled back and out of the hug, she turned around and hugged Laurel. They hadn’t been friends for as long as she and John had been, but she had grown close to her.

Now she was going to lose them. She was going to lose everyone.

“I am sure of this,” Felicity said determinedly nonetheless when she turned back to John.

He nodded, and they started walking. Laurel, who was now the one with Oliver’s bow and quiver, and John were flanking Felicity. It felt a little strange to walk between the two of them since both of them seemed like tall pillars of black leather next to her. Even with her heels she was so much shorter than him and in her red dress she probably looked like human warning sign in the dark of the night.

When they reached the warehouse, Laurel and John both grabbed their weapons more tightly. Felicity didn’t know what to do with her hands. She didn’t have her purse with her or anything else to hold onto. She wished there was something she could hold onto, something to-

“Felicity?” John asked, and she realized that she had been talking out loud. “Hold onto my belt, move closer and more behind me.”

Felicity didn’t hesitate. She immediately did as he said. Laurel moved with her, now walking slightly behind her. They were trying to shield her from all sides which was ridiculous given that her father wanted her alive. She wasn’t any use for him if she was dead. But Felicity didn’t say anything. These would be the last minutes she had with her friends, though, so having them hovering around her wasn’t too bad.

The wide doors to the warehouse opened before they had reached them. A dark-haired man waited for them with a cloudy facial expression. Although he didn’t hold any weapon in his hands like her father’s men usually did, Felicity knew that he belonged to the small circle of people around him.

“You can wait outside. Queen will get here when he is released,” the guy said, not even blinking when John put his gun right in his face. “From here on, Miss Smoak will have to go alone.”

“No,” John said. “We are not letting her go until we are sure that Oliver is safe.”

The man only smirked and gestured to the inside of the warehouse like a suburban housewife would invite guests into her home. John hesitated shortly, but he stepped inside. Felicity and Laurel followed.

As soon as she heard Oliver’s grunt of pain, Felicity let go of John’s belt and moved to the side. John’s broad chest had blocked her view, but it had only taken one step to the side to spot Oliver. Her feet started running on own accord. She wasn’t noticing any of what was happening around her. Her father and his men could be shooting at her, she wouldn’t have noticed. All her focus was on Oliver.

“Step away from him!” she yelled at the guy who was standing in front of Oliver, moving the knife that stuck in the right side of Oliver’s chest slightly. She felt the urge to push him away, but she didn’t want to risk that he was moving the knife even more. The wound was going to leave a scar, Felicity assumed, and she shortly wondered who was going to kiss it better because that had been the first thing she had done when they had had time to discover each other’s body without a threat in the back of their necks, she had kissed all of his scars better, but she got distracted when the guy lifted his gaze to somewhere in the darkness where Felicity was sure she could find her father. Then he stepped away, holding his hands in front of him.

Felicity approached Oliver hastily. She reached out her hands to touch him, but didn’t know where to touch without hurting him. The swelling of his left eye was even worse than it had been in the video. Dry blood that had come from a bruise on his forehead that was covered with scab now clung to his sweaty skin. There were several bruises on his chest. She could see them through the rips in his dress shirt. His head had fallen forward, so his chin rested on his chest. He was tied to the chair with his arms and legs. The bomb was attached to a belt around his waist.

When Oliver grunted again, Felicity reached out her hands again, carefully putting them to both sides of his head without coming anywhere near the bruises there. Oliver’s lids snapped open, but his eyes were moving around, never focusing on anything. Felicity gulped down a sob that threatened to escape her throat.

“Oliver,” she whispered as quietly as she could, so only he could hear her.

Immediately his eyes – or rather eye since the skin around the left eye was swollen too much as that he could see anything with it – focused on her face. The unease in his face vanished as he recognized her. For a short moment he showed the slightest sign of a smile on his face, and she smiled right back at him although tears were streaming down her cheeks now.

“Felicity,” Oliver said with raspy voice. It was more a pant than anything else, but it was clearly her name spilling from his lips. “What- What you’re do- doing?”

She pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of his lips, avoiding the cut on his bottom lip. When she pulled back and saw her lipstick on his skin, she swiped it away with her thumb, and tried to smile at him bravely, but the tears wouldn’t stop falling from her eyes.

“Everything will be alright. I promise,” she whispered, giving him what she hoped was a comforting smile before she straightened up and turned her gaze to the man who at least from a biological point of view was her father.

He was tall with broad shoulders and strong legs. He had the same dark, curly hair she had had in her childhood, hair that she had been so proud of because it had been the same as her father’s. His eyes were brown, though, which had annoyed her as a child because she had always desired to be as similar to her dad as possible.

She had been so naïve.

“I am glad that you decided to come here,” he said with the same smooth voice that had sung and talked her to sleep years ago, and that was now sending cold shivers down her back. “Your back-up is… cute, I’d say, but they shouldn’t have come here because if they fight me, they will die.”

Only now did Felicity realize that they were surrounded by six of her father’s little minions. John and Laurel were both forced to lower their weapons to the floor.

“They are not going to fight you,” Felicity answered nonetheless, her voice firmer than she had expected. “Nobody is going to fight you. Just… just let me save Oliver, and I’ll come with you. I’ll do everything you tell me to do. When Oliver gets to leave with them.”

Her father looked at her with cold eyes, eying her up, looking for a trap she might have set up for him, but there weren’t any. This was the deal he had offered her, and this was the deal she was willing to take. Oliver’s life for hers.

“F’lic’ty,” Oliver panted.

She stroked her hand over his hair soothingly without turning her gaze from her father. He looked at her with the same intensity in his eyes. They were trying to stare each other down, nobody saying a word. Only when he nodded, and gestured to one of his men around to release Oliver from the ties and the bomb, Felicity lowered her gaze back to Oliver.

He was staring at her, wordlessly shaking his head. His mouth opened and closed over and over again like he was trying so say something, but no sound came out.

“Everything is going to be alright,” Felicity repeated, kissing his temple. When her father’s minion approached them, she only hesitated shortly before she stepped aside and let the man try to loosen the ties and the bomb from Oliver.

“John,” Oliver said meanwhile, his voice growing stronger. “You can’t let this happen.”

Felicity didn’t have to turn around and look at her friend to know that he wasn’t happy about what was happening, but that he wasn’t doing anything against it, either. John had always been someone to understand that people needed to make their own choices. And he had known that especially choices of life and death could only made by the person who was facing the consequences. In this case it was Felicity.

“Laurel!” Oliver now almost yelled.

The bomb was already taken away, and the criminal was trying to cut the ropes that were tying Oliver to the chair, but Oliver had started moving wildly as much as the ties let him. The blade of the knife that was supposed to cut the ropes scratched his skin again and again. Hastily Felicity took the knife from the guy and put her free hand to Oliver’s cheek until his attention focused on her once more.

“Oliver,” she said gently, “you need to hold still. I am going to cut the ties, and then John and Laurel will take you home and take care of your bruises, okay?”

“Nothing’s okay,” he hissed. “I am not going to let you leave with him.”

“Yes, you are,” she whispered with a sad smile, kissing his forehead where it wasn’t bruised and then the tip of his nose and finally the corner of his lips.

He was holding still enough for her to cut the ties, and he almost fell forward off the chair when the ropes weren’t holding him on it any longer. But Oliver seemed to use all the strength the torture had left in him to get up and onto his bare feet.

Felicity grabbed his arm and put it over her shoulder, steadying him as well as she could, given that she was much smaller than him, and Oliver’s body was made of only muscles. She helped him to take a few steps until they reached John and Laurel who hurried to take his weight away from her before his much heavier body made her go down onto her knees.

When Felicity turned around to face her father, though, Oliver’s fighting spirit seemed to have woken again. His left arm was wrapped around John’s shoulders, and Laurel was holding onto the left side of his body. As soon as Felicity’s finger’s moved away from his chest, Oliver straightened up, holding all his weight on his own legs, and he moved his arm from John’s shoulders to reach out both his hands for Felicity, pulling her back against his chest.

His arms caged her to his bruised, bloody body when he said, “You are not going to leave.”

He said it through gritted teeth, the pain that was caused by the tight contact of her body against his pained one was audible in his voice, but he only pulled her closer to him. She tried to move away, but his arms around her tightened which she knew caused new pain to rip through his body, so Felicity gave in and held still. She leaned her head against his chest for a short moment, breathing him in.

He smelled sweaty, and she immediately felt herself set back to the moment months ago in their home in Ivy Town when he had returned from his morning run, finding her in the kitchen as she had tried to cook breakfast. He had tasted the omelet and told her that she had failed it. And she had smiled and pressed her body against his sweaty one, telling him that it was amazing. Their lips had met in a sweet kiss that had soon become fiercer until Oliver had lifted her from the floor and carried her upstairs into their bedroom where they had enjoyed a morning exercise of different nature.

“Felicity.”

Her father’s voice broke the memory that had played in front of her eyes like a movie in TV. She lifted her head from where it rested on Oliver’s chest and tried to pull back, but Oliver’s arms refused to let her move even the smallest step away from him.

“Oliver,” she whispered. “I’m gonna be okay. But you need to let me go.”

“I am not letting you go,” Oliver simply repeated. His arms were pressing into her back that strongly that it almost hurt now. “I am not letting you do this.”

“Yes, you do,” Felicity answered. “You handed yourself over to Ra’s for Thea last year. And I will hand myself over to my father for you now. That is what we do for the people we love. It is a simple deal – your life for that I am coming with him. He just wants me to join him. I am… I am going to be okay.”

She didn’t miss the way her voice became thinner. She didn’t believe that she was going to be okay-okay, but at least she would live. That needed to be enough for Oliver right now.

“Felicity,” her father said her name once again. She could hear in the tone of his voice that he was growing impatient.

“I love you,” Felicity whispered, straightening onto her tiptoes and pressing a kiss to Oliver’s lips. She tried to touch his lips only slightly, to not cause him more pain, but Oliver leaned down and locked her lips with his more firmly. She could feel his arms around her losing strength and knew that she had won. Oliver was going to let her go.

When they pulled apart, she kept her eyes closed for a few seconds, memorizing the taste of his lips and the feeling on his body. When she finally opened her eyes, Oliver looked at her with darkened eyes and a facial expression she had never seen and therefore couldn’t understand. It wasn’t the pained expression he had looked at her with when they had been forced to separate in Nanda Parbat or the guilty expression that had consumed his eyes when he had told her that they couldn’t be together in the hospital hallway after their catastrophic first date. It wasn’t the worried expression that had been in his eyes when he had eyed her up for any injuries after the Count had abducted her.

Felicity knew a lot of Oliver’s facial expression, and she had almost believed that she knew every single one of them, but she had obviously been wrong.

“O-“ she started to say his name to ask him what was going on, but the rest of his name drowned in her loud gasp for air when he turned her around, so her back was pressed against his chest. One arm wrapped around her waist, to keep her unmoving against him. The other arm slid around her throat, pressing down firmly.

Panic flooded her body. She tried kicking and scratching him to make him let go because the need for breath grew quickly, but Oliver held her in a strong grip.

He must have been drugged, Felicity thought. He must have been drugged or brainwashed or something. Oliver wouldn’t kill her. He trusted his abilities. He would rather assume that he would get her back by spending the rest of his life fighting for that than kill her. This wasn’t him. This was-

“I’m sorry, Felicity, but I cannot lose you.”

It had only been seconds, but she felt her body stop moving and going numb. She barely heard Laurel call out Oliver’s name and felt his lips press kiss against her temple before everything went black.

 

  


When she stopped fighting in his arms, Oliver needed to take a deep breath to calm his heart down at least enough to hear anything else than his quick heartbeat. He wished he could have told her something more than that he was sorry, but he hadn’t known what to say without giving his plan away.

He held her against him for little more of time. Not even now did he want to let go of her for even a second. But he knew that he had to let go. So he carefully placed her on the floor.

Laurel was fighting two guys off to his right. John was taking care of three others to his left. Oliver straightened up and looked at Felicity’s father, the man that had terrorized the city, broken into their home and tried to take the love of his life away several times the last two weeks.

“You killed her,” he said, staring at Felicity’s motionless body to Oliver’s feet. “You are really so consumed of your what you believe in that you rather kill her than let her live a life that would have opened the world to her?”

If his chest didn’t hurt that much, and he would be in a better mood, Oliver would laugh about that comment. This way he only snorted and said, “There is nothing I won’t do to protect her.”

Felicity’s father shook his head in disbelief and moved his hand to the inside of his jacket. Oliver was almost certain that he was going to pull out a gun, but he got distracted by one of the guys who escaped John and jumped at him. With the knife still in his chest and all the paining bruises from the torture he had been put through the last hours, Oliver wasn’t as good as a fighter as he usually was.

His anger that someone had tried to use him as a means of pressure against Felicity and tried to force her into darkness was enough to let adrenaline float through his veins and keep him on his feet, though. He fought the guy, never moving too far from Felicity’s body and always keeping himself between her and the criminal. It took more time than usually, but finally the guy fell to the floor, right next to Oliver’s bow and quiver.

Oliver moved as quickly as possible, gripping bow and arrows and straightening back up again, arrow pointed at Felicity’s father already. Her father had indeed, just like Oliver had assumed before he had been attacked, pulled out a gun and was pointing it at Oliver. Before he could pull the trigger, though, Oliver had already shot the gun out of his fingers, drawing back the bow to shoot another arrow.

The arrow was pointed at the man’s chest, right where his heart was supposed to be. All Oliver would have to do was letting go of the bowstring and the arrow would rip through the body of Felicity’s father, killing him.

Since the day Felicity had told him about how much she had been hurt when her father had left her and Donna, Oliver had carried this silent hate for the man inside of him. The closer he had grown to Felicity, the more hateful he had become towards her father. Sometimes he had imagined meeting him and there had been only two outcomes for him – her father would apologize and Felicity would forgive him in which case Oliver had threatened to kill him if he ever let her down again, or her father would be just as selfish as he had been in her childhood in which case he would kill him right away.

Standing with the arrow pointed at the man he hated so much now, Oliver hesitated. There was this part of him that wanted to let go, grab another arrow and shoot that, too, then a third and maybe a fourth and fifth and a sixth until he felt the hate for the man vanish. But there was also that small voice in the back of his mind that kept telling him that he had come so far and he had grown so much. Felicity had always been the one to tell him that he had to find another way. If he killed her father now, all that growth would be destroyed, wouldn’t it?

Oliver didn’t know how long he was standing there with the arrow pointed at the criminal’s chest. His hands were shaking slightly because the longer he stood there and thought about what to do, the less adrenaline was keeping him up on his feet, and the more could he feel the pain coming back.

The fights of Laurel and John had been ended. All the bad guys were defeated. He could see from the corner of his eyes how Laurel slowly approached Felicity and got down on her knees, not knowing what to do. She looked at him every now and then, her eyes showing the same insecurity as her actions. Only John seemed to stay calm. Of course he did, Oliver thought. John knew what was going on here.

“Oliver,” John said quietly. “He is not worth it. Let A.R.G.U.S. take care of him.”

John was right. He was not worth it, but he couldn’t let him live. There were already enough guys that could be threats to Felicity. Last year Slade Wilson for example had reminded him that he knew pretty well who he needed to hurt to destroy Oliver. Oliver’s gaze lowered to where Felicity was still lying unmoving on the floor.

He had to do it for her.

He shot the arrow and a second and a third. All of them ended in the criminal’s chest, but none of it was fetal. Felicity’s father stared at the arrows in his body, sinking down on his knees and trying to control his breathing. Oliver approached him and came to stand right in front of him.

“You’re lucky your daughter changed me to the man I am now,” Oliver growled. Then he lunged back and punched the man he hated with all his heart forcefully in the face. Groaning he fell to the floor and lost consciousness.

He had done the right thing, Oliver thought. He had promised never to kill again, and he wouldn’t if there was a way to avoid it. Her father believed that Felicity was dead. There was no reason for him to doubt that when he woke up again. Oliver would personally take care that her father would never learn that Felicity hadn’t died.

“Oliver, what did you do?” he heard Laurel whisper behind him and hastily turned around, dropping his bow and quiver to the floor carelessly.

Felicity still lay on the floor where he had put her earlier. Her eyes were closed, and her hair that had fallen out of her ponytail when she had struggled against his grip was placed around her head like a halo. Oliver crouched down next to her, lifting her into his arms and putting his chin on the top of her head.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Oliver said to Laurel, who still stared at him in disbelief. He turned towards his other friend. “John?”

John nodded, saying, “It’s okay. Curtis already informed the police and A.R.G.U.S.. They should be here any second. You go.”

Oliver didn’t waste a second. He turned around and left, carrying Felicity in his arms. He wanted her away from this place and the people there as soon as possible. Every second she was around the man who unfortunately was her father, made him feel sicker. She didn’t deserve a cruel father like he was, and he wanted to know her as soon as possible and as far as possible away from him.

“Where did you park the van?” Oliver asked Laurel, not turning his gaze from the street.

The pain was coming back to him. His arms felt heavy and he was scared he could drop her, so he tightened his grip, pulling her closer against him. The way he carried her made her body press against the knife that still stuck in his body, but Oliver didn’t want to let her down and carry her any different than he did right now. He needed to feel her body against his, needed to feel her face at the side of his neck. She was too precious to him to be carried in any other way.

“Turn left. It’s a side alley a little down the street,” Laurel answered, and Oliver followed her instructions, heading to his left and walking as quickly as he could. “Ollie, what is going on here?”

“Not yet,” Oliver whispered quietly, pressing a kiss to the crown of Felicity’s head.

He didn’t want to risk anything. As long as there were streetlamps that could reveal what they were doing, he wasn’t going to do anything.

Oliver felt his breaths growing shorter, his heartbeat becoming faster. The adrenalin was vanishing more and more. As soon as the worst of the stress would be over, he would probably pass out again. But not now.

When he found the car, he let Laurel open the door to the backseats for him. He put Felicity down on the leather gently and crouched down in the footwell next to her. Laurel climbed behind the steering wheel, locking the doors and turning in her seat, so she can look at Oliver.

“Ollie!” she said more firmly now. “What the hell is going on?!”

Wordlessly Oliver reached out his hand and stroked the knuckles of his fingers over Felicity’s cheek before he put his fingers to her chin, pulling her jaw down a little before applying some pressure. Felicity’s eyes snapped open. Gasping, she sat up and crawled back on the car seat until her back hit the inside of the car door. Oliver didn’t miss that she was now as far away from him as the car allowed her to be. After what he had done, he hadn’t expected anything different. He lifted his hands, the empty palms in her direction, proving to her that he was unarmed.

He saw from the corner of his eyes how Laurel looked from Felicity to him and back in shock. He knew that she hadn’t thought that he had killed her. Laurel knew too well how much he loved Felicity, but she surely had been clueless about what had been going on there. She couldn’t have known. John had, though. He had seen Oliver doing the exact same thing to a guy when the Bratva has ordered him to kill him. Oliver couldn’t explain any of this to Laurel right now, though, because Felicity was still staring, and she was still panting, trying to catch her breath while Oliver felt his body becoming weaker and weaker with every breath. Not long and he would pass out.

Before that happened, he needed to talk to Felicity and make sure that she was alright. He really needed to do that before he passed out.

“Felicity,” he said calmly. “Are you hurt?”

“What happened?” she asked, still breathless.

“I faked your death. Your father will be arrested by A.R.G.U.S.. I will pass out.”

Felicity frowned at him before her gaze lowered to his chest where the knife still stuck in his skin. Slowly she moved a little closer, her fingers reaching out to touch the skin close to the wound, but she stopped like an inch in front of it and pulled her hand back, realizing that it wouldn’t be too smart to touch the bruise.

“You were stabbed,” she said like the memory was only now coming back to her, her gaze lifting to his face again.

“Hey,” he said calmingly, “it’s nothing. How about you?”

“I am fine,” she answered hastily. “You?”

“Me, t-“

“Don’t even try, Oliver,” she interrupted him harshly.

Oliver had to suppress a smile. Yes, Felicity seemed fine, at least her loud voice was.

“I think I am going to pass out any second,” Oliver answered, his view already blurring. He took a deep breath, trying to pull himself together and hold onto his consciousness because there were so many things he still needed to say, but he knew that the fight was lost already.

“Come here,” he heard Felicity whisper, and immediately her hands framed his face, and she pulled his head to her chest, so he could close his eyes. “It’s okay. I am here now. And I am here when you will wake up.”

Those were the last words he heard before everything went black.

 

  


He woke to a soft feeling against his skin at the side of his chest. A smile spread on his lips because waking up to Felicity’s lips on his body was the best way to start a day. He loved when she did that, and they could take their time to pleasure each other. Slow morning sex before falling back to sleep for some more hours was the perfect way to start a day, Oliver thought. He sighed contently and-

As soon as the memories of what had happened came back to his mind, his eyes snapped open and he sat up, gasping for breath.

A pair of strong hands was put to his shoulders, trying to press him down again, but he wouldn’t let those hands move him because he knew immediately that those weren’t her hands. Only when Felicity stepped right in front of him, framing his face with her gentle hands, he allowed the other pair of hands to press him back down.

“Felicity,” he panted, focusing on her face in front of him.

“I am alright,” she said immediately, knowing what he needed to know. “I am alright, and you will be alright and everything will be alright.”

Oliver nodded slowly, taking a few deep breaths and trying to relax. He was in the lair, on the med table. Felicity was here. She was okay. And if she was okay, everything was going to be okay. He closed his eyes since he was still so damn tired. Felicity’s hands still tickled his stubble, making him smile.

When her hands traveled from his face down his body to his chest, he wanted to open his eyes again, but as soon as her lips pressed to the side of his body, he sighed and relaxed even more. He knew that her lips were exactly where her father had stabbed the knife into his body. She was kissing it better, just like she had done the first time they had really been able to take their time to discover each other’s body.

“Felicity?” he asked, not opening his eyes.

She hummed against his skin, not stopping to caress what he assumed was going to be a new scar. And although it hurt slightly, he didn’t pull away.

“I am sorry I had to choke you. I just thought it would be better if your father didn’t know that you were still alive,” he explained, opening his eyes and gazing down at where she leaned over his chest and kissed his skin. “I swear I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t known what I was doing.”

“I know that, Oliver,” she assured him, took his hand and moved, so she was leaning over his face now. “Don’t worry about that.”

“I just panicked,” Oliver continued nonetheless. “I didn’t know your plan, and I… I don’t know… I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t lose you to him, so I… I am sorry.”

Felicity shook her head, kissing him gently to the lips. “Don’t worry about that.”

Oliver nodded, sighed and slowly sat up. This time nobody fought him. Felicity moved a little closer to his side, so he could lean against her, and he did. He took a deep breath, chasing away the black spots that were dancing in front of his eyes. Then he looked at Felicity again. She indeed looked fine, a little tired maybe, but nothing some hours of sleep and relaxation wouldn’t fix.

“So…” he started after a while, “what was your plan?”

He remembered the short moment of panic when he had seen Felicity enter the warehouse. He had been so afraid that she was actually going to join her father in the darkness, but then he had realized that there was no way that John and Laurel would let that happen. So he had tried to relax, but his worry had taken over, and he had felt forced to do something. And he had done something.

“We had a brilliant plan,” Felicity started, nodding her head fiercely and smiling at him.

“Tell me,” Oliver asked, mirroring her smile.

“Okay, so we planned to go in that warehouse and tell my father that I was going with him when he released you. And then he would release you,” Felicity started, but then made a short pause, biting down on her bottom lip before she continued with increased speaking rate, “and then John and Laurel would take you home where you would have all the time in the world to get me back.”

Oliver stared at her blankly for a while before he cocked his head, and asked, “Felicity, where in this plan did I get you back?”

“In the epilogue,” Felicity answered, nodding her head again and again. “See, the prologue is your abduction. The main part is how we are getting you free, and the epilogue is you saving me.”

“Felicity,” Oliver started in a warning tone, but Felicity hastily pressed a kiss to his lips, distracting him successfully. Although there was a slight pain on his lips, the enjoyable feelings of her lips on his was all he could feel.

When she pulled back, she said, “You chocked me and let me think that you were going to kill me. I think you owe me one, and this is ‘one’.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes at her. He knew that they needed to talk about this, about her giving herself over to the evil side to save him. But they didn’t have to talk about that right now. Right now they needed to enjoy and celebrate the fact that they had both gotten through this alive, and they were still together.

“Lucky you,” Oliver answered, pulling her between his legs and stroking his hands up and down her back before closing the distance between them completely and kissing her.

She melted into him completely, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, and when his tongue opened her lips, he could hear her sigh into his mouth, “Very lucky me.”


End file.
